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I wouldn't rush off and eliminate the peanut "completely" from my parrot's diet even though there is some evidence of poorly prepared goobers in the marketplace, their advantages are not replaced by other items.

As with any diet, items containing too much of one thing is not in the best interest of our birds. We just have to be the human being here and decide for our parrots how much is good. What might be ok for one species is too much for the other. A macaw can eat several peanuts a day while an eclectus should have only a few a week that is shelled and absent of even the skin surrounding (inner shell) so use you own good common sense.

The necessary things that our parrot needs coming from the "earthnut" are:
1)Niacin- brain health, brain circulation and blood flow
2)Antioxidants- peanuts rival the antioxidant content of blackberries and strawberries, and are far richer in antioxidants than apples, carrots or beets.
3)Resveratrol- anti-aging effects and also associated with reduced cardiovascular disease and reduced cancer risk. Peanuts contain almost 30 times as much resveratrol as grapes, which often are touted as being one of the few good sources of the antioxidant
4)Coenzyme Q10- along with oily fish, beef, soybeans and spinach, peanuts help to accelerate the growth of male and female hormones.

The earliest accounts of peanuts are over 10,000 years ago from Central America (where coincidentally most of our parrots are from) and have been a steady diet supply for them, probably way before that. Remember our parrots are over 10 million years old and it goes without saying that their beaks are custom made for digging these delicacies out of the ground. Where ever you find peanuts growing, either wild or by choice (farming) you will find wild parrots.

The problems we have right now with Peanuts are that they are particularly susceptible to contamination during growth and storage. Poor storage of peanuts can lead to an infection by the mold fungus Aspergillus flavus, releasing the toxic substance aflatoxin. The aflatoxin producing molds exist throughout the peanut growing areas and may produce aflatoxin in peanuts when conditions are favorable to fungal growth. Control the fungal growth and you control the problems associated with peanuts.

Parrots are not susceptible to severe allergic reactions that cause fatal anaphylactic shock. This is a human thing which the peanut gets a bad rap for most of the time. People who have allergies to peanuts should not feed them to their parrots.

I'm putting the finishing touches on my pellet diet response, I'll try to have it done this weekend.

Dutch

One of my employees at my bird store use to try the pellets to see what they tasted like and now I guess there are lots of people whom like them. This is getting a little out of hand. I use to make Pretty Bird's muffin mixes years ago and give them out at bird club meetings on the dessert table and then when I was putting on a presentation I would tell people that they were eating a new bird food product. The muffin mixes were good. I liked the spice apple one.

You all are way to funny...

Denis

Monochromacy, Monkey Chow and Bird Pellets

Monochromacy or "total color blindness" is best described as the lack or ability to distinguish colors, caused by cone defect or absence of two or (all) three of the cone pigments with color and lightness vision reduced to one dimension. Living things with monochromacy are called monochromats. Monochromats are truly color blind and can see only shades of black, gray and white. In fact all mammals other than humans and our fellow primates are monochromats (with minor exceptions.) Birds are not monochromats, and depend on their color vision to judge spacial perceptions within flight, mate choices, places to roost and make nest, and of course their choice of food is greatly enhanced by the sense of sight highlighted by "color."

Chow (Registered Trademark) belongs to the founder of Purina, William H Danforth when in 1894 he decided to offset the natural feeds of farm animals with a pelleted diet he invented. His vision was to provide a complete and nutritious feed totally independent of the types of support plantings that each farmer had to provide on their individual farms to sustain livestock. In the past each farmer had to set aside certain acreage to plant the different food source for the different animals and when those crops failed so did that livestock. First invented was Purina Horse Chow, then Pig Chow and so forth. Later he decided to ad those "Chow's" to the farm pets, Dog Chow and Cat Chow. In 1905 The Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus asked him to formulate a Chow for their Monkeys because they were loosing them in the circus and could not sustain their diet.

If anybody is familiar with William H Danforth, you would know how meticulous he was in formulating this feeds and diets for the animals he provided for. It was only by hiring the best Veterinarians in the country and almost pristine manufacturing processes and years of testing and evaluation did he finally release a product. Purina Mills (the parent company) is still to this day "the manufacturing standard" of food sources for any consumption human or otherwise. In those days the word "Pure" and Purina went hand in hand. Each feed (or Chow) was individually formulated for the different dietary needs of each individual animal. He did not produce Bird Chow, but all the major zoos around the world quickly adapted Monkey Chow for a substitute in their aviaries.

My grandfather used Monkey Chow as a stable in his aviary and as a small child one of my duties was to place some in a burlap bag and crush it for the different sizes of birds he kept. Once crushed I was to divide the larger chunks for the larger parrots, medium sized ones for those, and so forth. In fact he kept the totally crushed powder to add in a special mixture (formula) he would hand feed the babies (I still have his original recipe from back in the 1920's written out.) The rest I would mix with Kaytee seed in the appropriate sizes and mixtures for each individual species of bird.

The idea of a bird special pellet diet is rather recent and has only been around for say the last 25 years. Early entries were poorly formulated and provided for many law suits and lawyers folly. Many companies have come and gone mostly by loosing large verdicts and poor reputations.

Grandpa had a saying "because" he drove a General Motors product. He didn't like Ford cause if he had to sue them he'd doubt that they could afford the judgment. So my training in finding deep pockets as an indication of a companies reliability to produce something and having to stand up for it began. I see it every time that I visit a pet supply store. Little no-name companies come forward with an idea, no matter how intelligent it is, but did they do "their homework" before bringing it to market, and will they back it up come judgment day?

Colored pellets were introduced in order to get "Color Vision" birds to eat their product. But artificial coloring lead to many law suits over the years and what remained on the store shelves one week changed the next from insufficient testing and evaluation for the species of birds that were using the product. You see Chow's didn't need color on account of the Monochromats that were being fed. Bird pellets needed color to fool the birds. You have to understand at this time most of the birds were wild caught and thus provided the perfect storm so to speak, they wouldn't eat unless they had some sort of visual assurance what they were eating was like that in the wild.

Natural food coloring is the order of the day now. Testing and evaluation is far further than anything William H Danforth could ever have imagined. Each color pellet is actually a different taste and most contain different ingredients and come off a completely different line all together. In the end they are mixed proportionately to the diet percentage. When we read all these foreign sounding ingredients listed on the label for the pellets we are actually seeing what a natural "grown" product is chemically comprised of when it is packaged in a whole state. The companies do not sit there with all these exotic chemicals and "add" them to the mix, believe me! It looks worse than it reads! These are naturally occurring chemicals in the natural feed that is being pelleted. And you can take all those old wives tales about "cooking the pellets," the "color being bad for your bird," and thousands of others that are as old as PT Barnum himself, and forget about them completely.

Some hints in choosing what pellet is best for your species are as follows:

1) Find a good company (like grandpa said, with deep pockets) preferably from the USA, which you have faith in.
2) Check and see where is the source of their ingredients (remember the china protein import fiasco last year?)
3) Do they have a formula which is "species specific" to the species you intend to feed.
4) Only use pellets as an ingredient to a well balanced diet which includes "Fresh" organic foods you prepare daily
5) Use seeds sparingly or as a treat, there is little benefit to seeds when compared to fresh pellets and fresh food.
6) The key here is "Fresh Pellets" and the bag should remain sealed between uses, changed out daily, and don't forget to throw out the left overs to your wild bird friends in the neighborhood. They enjoy them too!

Dutch

Man you went way on your limb here to get what point across? I have sold every brand of pellet ever since they came out for birds years ago and I know about everything that you wrote and even more. We used both natural and colored pellets over the years at my store in Indy and the tiels and small birds did better on the natural then the colored pellets as far as accepting them to eat.

Back in the middle 80's we even used chciken pellets and high protein dog food pellets. the specie specific Pretty Bird is a good pellet, but just a tad bit hard for most bird sto eat and so that is why I have chosen the Zupreem and I also recommend Harrisons and Roudybush. I think that as long as you give a good balance then you can't go wrong in the long run. My original intention was to make people aware that feeding just seed was not a good idea. I had for years a release center for scarlet and great green macaws in Costa Rica where I lived in the late 90's and I learned a lot about what our 23 wild macaws loved to eat daily along with what we gave them from our house.

I think that your e-mail will for sure go over lots of heads, but it was nice of you to add your words of wisdom.

Denis WWW.Platinumaviary.com

Bravo Denis.I used to feed my birds Pretty Bird but then the company did something I didnt like (years ago . forgotten what)and I never bought it again. My birds get Zupreem , and Harrisons. Sinbad gets prescribed Roudybush AK--$27.70 for 44 oz. Ouch. I like your attitude Denis.----Yogi